


Came Back Wrong (didnt come back at all)

by Runwildwithme (NectarinesAndSourThings)



Series: Tales from the Else [3]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Bargaining, Gen, Names, Revenge, Stolen away, Taken, betrayel, dont worry he's a dick, not everyone who gets taken comes back, selling names, sometimes the people who do come back come back wrong, sometimes they come back wrong without even really coming back, strongly implied murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NectarinesAndSourThings/pseuds/Runwildwithme
Summary: Sometimes, when someone gets taken someone goes after them.Sometimes, when someone gets taken they win their own freedom, but wit or by luck.Sometimes, when someone gets taken, they're later set free.Sometimes, even when they come back, they come back wrong.This isn't any of those times.(Flowerpower didn't come back, notreally, but she still came backwrong.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I'm still working on Feathers, just... not in chronological order. I now know exactly how it ends, and a pretty solid idea of how to get there though! 
> 
> In the mean time, have this. ...Directly related to working on Feathers and this: it is fricken _hard _to keep switching back and forth between past and present tense. I think I caught all my slip ups in this, but let me know if you guys catch anything!__
> 
>  
> 
> Oh!! There's a mention of a monster-hunter librarian. I read the ask on the EU blog and fell in love with the idea. :)
> 
> __  
> _:D_  
> 

“My name’s Flowerpower. Well. Ok, yeah, no, it's not. You know I mean my name, not my _Name_ . My mom was a hippie, yeah, but not _that_ much of one.” The girl sat leaning against a cave wall, knees bent nearly to her chest, elbows resting upon them. She didn't care that the moss was leaching water into her clothes where she leaned against it, and though her flesh goose-pimpled she didn't feel cold.

 

“Back when I first got to Elsewhere, I’d just been getting over the last gasp of a truly nasty case of mono, so I ended up missing orientation. I had to make an appointment in the administrative building to fill out the paperwork I missed, and introduced myself to the counselor who was guiding me through it all.” She paused, as if waiting for a reaction. After a second longer, she went on.

 

“I introduced myself _by Name._ Which. Yeah. I know _now,_ but like I said: I missed orientation. Looking back, I was _so friggin lucky_ that my counselor is the one who's married to the monster-hunter librarian.  She didn't even think of taking advantage. Still hasn’t, may whatever she believes in bless her.” The girl- Flowerpower- sighed, let her head loll back against the stone, idly twisted her ring.

 

“Back then, though, she'd looked at me with the eyes of someone who was only feeling pity because they felt like should, not necessarily because they _did_ , you know, and told me I was a ‘sweet summer child’.

 

"Once I got over being offended- I absolutely recognized the reference, and even if I hadn't, I’m plenty capable of realizing when someone is talking down to me- she explained why Names were a bad idea.

 

“From there, it was pretty easy to pick my name- hippie parent, sweet summer child, boom: Flowerpower.” She laughed, just a little.

 

"I'm part of- _was_ part of the population of the students at Elsewhere who're In the Know, but not actually Involved. Sure, I own a pair of glasses from Cat Eyes, but that's about on par with owning facewash here- not totally needed, except for how _yes actually it is.”_ She went silent again, for a span of several breaths, and dropped her head forward to hide against her knees. She took a handful of slow, measured breaths until it wasn't hard to maintain the rhythm, and only then spoke back up.

 

“I don't wear them much. Some people do- can't stand the not knowing, I guess. But like. Shit, man, I'm not in statistics, and I'm certainly no science major.  I'm in _philosophy:_ ‘not knowing’ is part of the territory. The universe is a big fucken place, I don't need to know everything. I just need to do my homework, pass my classes, graduate on time and get the hell out.”  She was breathing a bit fast again, and she again took the time to slow down.

 

“...that came out a little harsh, didn't it? Don't get me wrong- I _love_ it here at Elsewhere. This place is great, and the people who graduate from here almost always end up successful. But like I said, I'm In the Know; I'm getting my degree and getting out before this place gets its hooks into me and I _can't_ leave without leaving a chunk- at the very least- of myself behind. Or. Well. That was the plan. Little too late for that now, yeah?” Flowerpower laughed, loud, jarring, unhappy.

 

“I just. Fuck. I was gonna _do it,_ you know? I've only got one year left, and I took all the hard classes for my major already! I just. Just. Fuck. _Fuck.”_ Her voice broke.

 

 _“I_ didn't even screw up. My stupid treacherous backstabbing dumbfuck of an ex boyfriend was the one who traded my Name away. Like. Who the fuck _does_ that?” She asked, not quite shouting but close to it, not caring that she received no answer.

 

“And it's not like I dated some rando for two weeks and spilled my innermost secrets- this dude has _met my family_ . I took him home for _Christmas_ . And like. Listen. My family isn't very religious, sure, but like a lot of Americans Christmas is still a capital-b Big Deal family holiday for us. When you bring someone to the Christmas party, it means things are _serious_ ; start-looking-for-a-ring-on-the-finger-pretty-soon levels of serious.

 

And he fucking _sold my Name.”_

 

Flowerpower bit her lip hard, tried to fight the way her face was screwing up.

 

Around her, the shadows shifted, surged, writhed along crevices.

 

 _“Ring on the finger?”_ A voice parroted.

 

Flowerpower took a shuddering deep breath, held it until her lungs burned, and poured it out.

 

“I thought I was gonna marry him.” She whispered. The fae knew what marriage was- it was a ritual for changing and exchanging names until they were Names. Of course they knew about marriage.

 

There was a long pause.

 

“ _I think_ .” The shadows sibilated, “ _that I ended up with the better end of that deal.”_

 

“What, you thinking I dodged a bullet?” Flowerpower snorted, bitter and angry and ugly with it. “Better you than him, that what you figure?”

 

There was no answer. The brittleness seemed to seep away from her.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, you're prolly right.”

 

The shadows stayed silent. After what felt like an eternity but was more likely only twenty minutes or so, Flowerpower slowly down the wall and curled up on her side.

 

When the shadows next spoke, some length of time later, she startled hard, lurching back up into a sitting position.

 

 _“I have a task for you,”_ they said.

 

Heart pounding rabbit-fast, she forced out a quip, achieved a sarcastic drawl by sheer force of will, only trembled a little bit: “Your wish is my command.”

 

She wished she was joking. The shadows roiled.

 

_“Make your traitor-love regret his treachery.”_

 

Flowerpower stared into the shadows for a long time before she nodded.

 

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I can do that.”

 

She stood up, ignored the moss hanging from her body. The shadows parted to release her from the cave, slid off of her like the moss didn't.

 

When she stepped into the light, a hand held up to keep the glare from her eyes, she carried the shadows with her.

 

She would never feel cold again. Never feel the bite of the air in winter, never fear the dark of the forest or the night- the things that lurked there had already caught her, after all.

 

Flowerpower took one step, and then another. By the time she found her way back to a part of the campus she recognized, her eyes had adapted, though there was still a tightness behind them that spoke to a newly developed sensitivity, and moss hung heavy about her like a tattered cloak.

 

Around her, her classmates’ eyes caught sight of her and then slid off. Flowerpower didn't blame them- she'd come back, sure, but she hadn't _returned_. Not in any way that mattered.

 

One set of eyes lingered just a tad too long- Cindy, who she’d partnered with in biology lab freshman year. Never the closest friend, but a friend all the same, once upon a time.

 

“Cindy, wait up!” Flowerpower called, and if it came more out more like a command than a request, well.

 

Cindy waited, eyes turned down and knuckles clenched white on the strap of her purse. She looked.. different. Older.

 

“How long?” Flowerpower asked, and fell into step with Cindy as they walked towards- yup, the art building. _Dangerous, Cindy,_ Flowerpower couldn't help but think.

 

Cindy took a deep breath, the blew it out.

 

“A year and a day.”  

 

That was much longer than Flowerpower had thought it had been. It should have given her pause. It should have struck her with a bolt of grief, knowing her family had been notified of her disappearance after the RAs failed to retrieve her. It should have cleaved her in two, to hear how time had passed her by while she changed in the shadow’s cave.

 

It only made her frown, thinking of the trouble she might have finding her dumbfuck ex if his schedule wasn't the same.

 

“Tell me where I can find Arthur.” That time it _definitely_ wasn't a request, and from the slow way Cindy’s eyes widened she knew why Flowerpower wanted to know.

 

“Oh my god, Flowerpower, there were rumors but I never really thought- oh god, how'd you get _away?”_

 

Flowerpower just looked at her- dropped her eyes to the moss clinging to her limbs, looked back up, watched as Cindy’s eyes took the same path.

 

“I didn't.” Cindy made a low, mournful noise, _visibly_ barely stopped herself from telling Flowerpower how sorry she was.

 

“Why.. why do you want to find Arthur?” She asked, and Flowerpower felt herself smile, full of teeth and gore.

 

“My master is a kind one- the first task he sets for me is one I do not mind completing.”

 

Cindy shuddered again, then changed directions towards the poli-sci building.

 

Flowerpower quirks a brow at her guide.

 

“He changed majors after you- well. After.” She said, and then her eyes hardened with sudden realization, and she was _angry_ . “Flowerpower, he won the _lottery_ when he went home for summer break. Oh my god, he’s had such good luck over the past year- he's _scum.”_

 

 _“_ I'm beginning to realize that, yes.”

 

Cindy lead Flowerpower into the poli-sci building, up the stairs, to the doors of a lecture hall.

 

Flowerpower stopped there, peered through the window in the door. Arthur was sitting at the from of the lecture hall, off to the side, grading papers.   _A TA position- lucky indeed,_ Flowerpower thought. TA positions at Elsewhere always paid well, and they almost always led to internships and connections.

 

 _But luck runs out,_ she thought.

 

She slammed the door open _,_ and something in her _relished_ the way the professor turned to her, outraged at the interruption, the way he _stopped_ when he saw her.  She nodded to him when he backed down, turned her attention to Arthur.

 

He jerked back, up and out of his seat. The chair clattered to a rest behind him. His held out his hands, half supplication, half ward.

 

“Cather-” Flowerpower cut him off, voice gone low and dangerous.

 

“You don't get to call me by my Name. Not anymore, not after you _sold_ it.” She cracked out the accusation like a whip, smiled when he paled and darted glances at his peers for their reactions.

 

She saw his mouth open, and spoke again before he could try to argue himself out of his guilt.

 

“Do you know what my master calls you?” She asked, walking down the stairs of the lecture hall, each word accompanied by a foot step. He stared at her, mouth gaping like a fish pulled from the water, off balance.

 

“He calls you my _traitor-love._ ” Behind her, Cindy choked back a noise half grief, half rage. The students around them murmured, shocked, offended. Arthur turned even paler.

 

“What did you think would _happen_ ? That I'd be _whisked_ away, never to return? That I wouldn't make allies, that I’d never speak of your- your _betrayal?_ ” From the way his mouth snapped shut, that was exactly what he had thought.

 

Flowerpower supposed she was being a tad misleading, here. It had been scarce hours for her, and a whole year for the rest of the world. She knew her words implied she'd been aware of the passing time, implied the presence of allies, the good will and backing of her master, permission for the hunt. Hunt, even.  That last, she had, but the rest... well. She had told no lies, and all was fair in love and war.  If he made assumptions...

 

It was all the better to make him _fear_.

 

He slid away from the chair he'd knocked askew, moved towards the door on the side wall.  

 

On a hunch, Flowerpower let him, and when he scrabbled at the doorknob it refused to budge, locked tight.

 

“Looks like all that luck you bought has about run out.” Flowerpower told him, enjoyed the shaking of hi hands.

 

He was pale, so pale, and he trembled in the face of her, brow dampened with a cold sweat.

 

Flowerpower turned her head towards the professor, but didn't actually take her eyes off of Arthur.

 

“Professor, now would be a good time to take your class away.” She told him, and in her peripheral vision she watched as he drew himself up.

 

“Indeed, I would be glad to, but I would like to take my TA with me.” His voice was even, if a little fast.

 

“I'm sure, but I can't quite allow that. He and I have business, and my master has tasked me with the finishing of it.”

 

“Perhaps it could be put off for a time?” The professor asked. “He has a prior engagement in the form of his duties to me.”

 

“It's been put off for a year already, Professor. And for what he's done to me, even if I could put this off, I can't think of a single reason why I'd want to.”

 

Flowerpower paused, and then looked at the professor directly.

 

“And anyways," She said, "It's our Good Neighbors who respect things like that- breaking contracts, promises, trust... that's all very _human_.”

 

The professor held her gaze for a long time, long enough that she thought she might have two bodies to drag back to the shadows. He must have seen the thought cross her mind, though, because -finally- he bowed his head, and herded his students out.  

 

Cindy was the last one to leave.

 

Arthur called out to Cindy, beseeching- “Cindy, Cindy please, don’t leave me here!”

 

She stopped in the doorway for only a moment. The door fell shut behind her with a very final sort of thud. 


End file.
